The Criterion Collection Announces May Titles: ‘Ghost World,’ ‘Dheepan,’ ‘Jeanne Dielman’ and More

Daniel Clowes designed the box art for "Ghost World."

The Criterion Collection has announced its May offerings, including “Dheepan,” “Ghost World” and a Blu-ray update of “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.” Also joining the Collection are Orson Welles’ “Othello,” a new World Cinema Project collector’s set and Yasujirō Ozu’s “Good Morning.” More information below.

“Ghost World”

“Terry Zwigoff’s first fiction film, adapted from a cult-classic comic by Daniel Clowes, is an idiosyncratic portrait of adolescent alienation that’s at once bleakly comic and wholly endearing. Set during the malaise-filled months following high-school graduation, ‘Ghost World’ follows the proud misfit Enid (Thora Birch), who confronts an uncertain future amid the cultural wasteland of consumerist suburbia. As her cynicism becomes too much to bear even for her best friend, Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), Enid finds herself drawn to an unlikely kindred spirit: a sad-sack record collector many years her senior (Steve Buscemi). With its parade of oddball characters, quotable, Oscar-nominated script, and eclectic soundtrack of vintage obscurities, Ghost World is one of the twenty-first century’s most fiercely beloved comedies.”

“Dheepan”

“With this Palme d’Or-winning drama, which deftly combines seemingly disparate genres, French filmmaker Jacques Audiard cemented his status as one of the titans of contemporary world cinema. In an arresting performance, the nonprofessional actor Antonythasan Jesuthasan (himself a former child soldier) stars as a Tamil fighter who, along with a woman and child posing as his wife and daughter, flees war-torn Sri Lanka only to land in a Paris suburb riddled with drugs. As the makeshift family embarks on a new life, ‘Dheepan’ settles into an intimate social-realist mode, before tightening, gradually and organically, into a dynamic turf-war thriller, as well as an unsettling study of the psychological aftereffects of combat. Searing and sensitive, Audiard’s film is a unique depiction of the refugee experience as a continuous crisis of identity.”

“Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles”

“A singular work in film history, Chantal Akerman’s ‘Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’ meticulously details, with a sense of impending doom, the daily routine of a middle-aged widow (Delphine Seyrig) – whose chores include making the beds, cooking dinner for her son, and turning the occasional trick. In its enormous spareness, Akerman’s film seems simple, but it encompasses an entire world. Whether seen as an exacting character study or one of cinema’s most hypnotic and complete depictions of space and time, ‘Jeanne Dielman’ is an astonishing, compelling movie experiment, one that has been analyzed and argued over for decades.”

“Othello”

“Gloriously cinematic despite being made on a tiny budget, Orson Welles’s ‘Othello’ is a testament to the filmmaker’s stubborn willingness to pursue his vision to the ends of the earth. Unmatched in his passionate identification with Shakespeare’s imagination, Welles brings his inventive visual approach to this enduring tragedy of jealousy, bigotry, and rage, and also gives a towering performance as the Moor of Venice, alongside Suzanne Cloutier as his innocent wife, Desdemona, and Micheál MacLiammóir as the scheming Iago. Shot over the course of three years in Morocco, Venice, Tuscany, and Rome and plagued by many logistical problems, this fiercely independent film joins ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Chimes at Midnight’ in making the case for Welles as the cinema’s most audacious interpreter of the Bard.”

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 2

“Established by Martin Scorsese in 2007, the Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project has maintained a passionate commitment to preserving and presenting masterpieces from around the globe, with a growing roster of more than two dozen restorations that have introduced moviegoers to often-overlooked areas of cinema history. This collector’s set gathers six important works, from the Philippines (‘Insiang’), Thailand (‘Mysterious Object at Noon’), Soviet Kazakhstan (‘Revenge’), Brazil (‘Limite’), Turkey (‘Law of the Border’), and Taiwan (‘Taipei Story’). Each title is an essential contribution to the art form and a window onto a filmmaking tradition that international audiences previously had limited opportunities to experience.”

“Good Morning”

“A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of intergenerational relationships, ‘Good Morning’ (‘Ohayo’) tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking as an act of resistance after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his childish protagonists. Shot in stunning Technicolor and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed men look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy reworks Ozu’s own silent classic ‘I Was Born, But…’ to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.”